4 ms·

so this entire article is based on the assumption that current farming practice is wholly unsustainable. I'm not sure I buy into this. Surely it can be adapted

so this entire article is based on the assumption that current farming practice is wholly unsustainable. I'm not sure I buy into this. Surely it can be adapted as opposed to rejected and completely changed, can't it?

yoz-y 10y ago
Marked will decide. In France I already see more Bio (Organic) shops around than those selling conventional food. I don't go there because of the price but the demand is clearly growing. Most of the organic food is produced by the same companies that do conventional farming anyways, shift will come.
- jeromenerf 10y ago
  "Market will decide", as if. Governments can (and some do) help to bootstrap a saner "organic" economic landscape by creating demand through regulations such as "school restaurants food should be 50% local and organic by 2020, 100% by 2030".
  - yoz-y 10y ago
    Government could do that, but it should only be necessary if the claims that "you can produce more calories per acre of organic food compared to traditional agriculture" are false. If it is cheaper to produce more, of more expensive produce, you can bet that the agriculture industry will shift.
loup-vaillant 10y ago
This particular assumption is pretty safe: current farming practice depends heavily on oil. For energy of course, but also for chemicals. Nothing that depends that heavily on fossil fuels is sustainable in the long run. Whatever change we devise, we need to weaken that dependency. > Surely it can be adapted as opposed to rejected and completely changed, can't it? Personally, I see organic agriculture as a modernization: it's healthier (no poisonous pesticide in my apple!), easier on the soil, but it's not easier. The knowledge required to grow food organically is quite precise, and research is still ongoing.
- dagw 10y ago
  it's healthier (no poisonous pesticide in my apple!) That is simply not true. Organic farming uses pesticides just as conventional farming, and I'm not aware of any studies that find that organic pesticides are consistently better for your health than non-organic. Rotanone for example is popular with many organic farmers, and has been linked to causing Parkinson's disease. PS: This is not an argument against organic farming, and I buy organic as much as possible, but there is no reason to believe that doing so has any effect on my health.
  - loup-vaillant 10y ago
    Depends on how we define "organic". If it can include pesticides, that's a bit depressing. There's a way to avoid pesticides altogether: grow local apples that thrive in the local environment. Some will get eaten by worms, some will rot… Select them out. You don't always need those pesticides.
    - dagw 10y ago
      I'm not aware of any definition of organic farming that excludes the use of pesticides. There is also Biodynamic farming, which does avoids pesticides and artificial fertilizer.
    - TeMPOraL 10y ago
      From what I hear, it does. More than that - because "organic" is at least in some part based around scaring people with "unnatural things" and "evil chemicals", it limits its choice of pesticides, potentially excluding ones that are less toxic and less harmful, just because they're not "natural".
    - roel_v 10y ago
      Look, pesticides are a cost. If there was a way that was as easy as you make it out to be, farmers would already do it, because the market would force them to. This whole discussion is about the fact that it isn't as simple as saying 'just grow local'. People do that already and those apples cost 2-3 times what they cost in the supermarket (apart from a few weeks in september when they are 1/2 of supermarket prices because there's a glut of apples that will otherwise spoil). The question is now: how do we scale this up, so that we can feed everybody this way, including those people who can't afford such price premiums?

yoz-y 10y ago

Marked will decide. In France I already see more Bio (Organic) shops around than those selling conventional food. I don't go there because of the price but the demand is clearly growing. Most of the organic food is produced by the same companies that do conventional farming anyways, shift will come.

jeromenerf 10y ago
"Market will decide", as if. Governments can (and some do) help to bootstrap a saner "organic" economic landscape by creating demand through regulations such as "school restaurants food should be 50% local and organic by 2020, 100% by 2030".
- yoz-y 10y ago
  Government could do that, but it should only be necessary if the claims that "you can produce more calories per acre of organic food compared to traditional agriculture" are false. If it is cheaper to produce more, of more expensive produce, you can bet that the agriculture industry will shift.

loup-vaillant 10y ago

This particular assumption is pretty safe: current farming practice depends heavily on oil. For energy of course, but also for chemicals. Nothing that depends that heavily on fossil fuels is sustainable in the long run. Whatever change we devise, we need to weaken that dependency. > Surely it can be adapted as opposed to rejected and completely changed, can't it? Personally, I see organic agriculture as a modernization: it's healthier (no poisonous pesticide in my apple!), easier on the soil, but it's not easier. The knowledge required to grow food organically is quite precise, and research is still ongoing.

dagw 10y ago
it's healthier (no poisonous pesticide in my apple!) That is simply not true. Organic farming uses pesticides just as conventional farming, and I'm not aware of any studies that find that organic pesticides are consistently better for your health than non-organic. Rotanone for example is popular with many organic farmers, and has been linked to causing Parkinson's disease. PS: This is not an argument against organic farming, and I buy organic as much as possible, but there is no reason to believe that doing so has any effect on my health.
- loup-vaillant 10y ago
  Depends on how we define "organic". If it can include pesticides, that's a bit depressing. There's a way to avoid pesticides altogether: grow local apples that thrive in the local environment. Some will get eaten by worms, some will rot… Select them out. You don't always need those pesticides.
  - dagw 10y ago
    I'm not aware of any definition of organic farming that excludes the use of pesticides. There is also Biodynamic farming, which does avoids pesticides and artificial fertilizer.
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    From what I hear, it does. More than that - because "organic" is at least in some part based around scaring people with "unnatural things" and "evil chemicals", it limits its choice of pesticides, potentially excluding ones that are less toxic and less harmful, just because they're not "natural".
  - roel_v 10y ago
    Look, pesticides are a cost. If there was a way that was as easy as you make it out to be, farmers would already do it, because the market would force them to. This whole discussion is about the fact that it isn't as simple as saying 'just grow local'. People do that already and those apples cost 2-3 times what they cost in the supermarket (apart from a few weeks in september when they are 1/2 of supermarket prices because there's a glut of apples that will otherwise spoil). The question is now: how do we scale this up, so that we can feed everybody this way, including those people who can't afford such price premiums?